Figure It Out

---
name: figure-it-out
description: "Use when novel or multi-phase work needs an auditable workflow and no narrower playbook fits."
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jstack-maintainers
  source: michael-denyer/pstack-claude
  source-version: "0.9.30"
  source-commit: 45f768349a6d7d7e71509fee3f5bccfad54b3bad
  owner: software-factory
  risk: medium
  capabilities: jstack,engineering-workflow
---

# Figure it out

When the task matches no playbook, design one. The deliverable before any code is the workflow itself: a sequence of phases that scales rigor to the task, runs the scientific method, and leaves a decision trail a human can audit after stepping away. Bias toward more rigor. The cost of building the wrong thing dwarfs the cost of being careful.

## Start

Open a todolist whose first item is to read the Principles section of the **poteto-mode** skill. Then add the phases below as todos.

## Phase A: Frame

Ground first, then commit. Don't start the run until you can state:

- The definition of done as a falsifiable predicate (the **prove-it-works** principle skill).
- Scope, quantified: rough units and effort, plus the blockers grounding surfaced.
- The rigor level, biased high. One-way doors and high blast radius get more; reversible low-stakes steps get less. Rigor is gates and artifacts, not "try harder".

Present the framing and tradeoffs before committing to a long run. Reversible work proceeds (the **never-block-on-the-human** principle skill), but a multi-hour run earns one checkpoint.

## Phase B: Design the workflow

Decompose into atomic, independently-landable units. Sequence riskiest-unknown-first. Scaffold and verification come before features (the **foundational-thinking** principle skill).

- Build the verification harness before the work, with the baseline captured from the pre-change state, so the check reads as "old value vs new value".
- For one-way-door design decisions, run the **architect** skill (it runs **arena**). Skip it for mechanical work whose shape is already concrete. A second arena over a settled design is over-engineering (the **laziness-protocol** principle skill).
- Decide what fans out. Parallelize only across seams, and give each worker its own worktree or branch (the **separate-before-serializing-shared-state** principle skill). Don't over-fan.
- Write the designed phase list down. That list is what the human reviews.

Then execute the design. Add its steps to the todolist as concrete items, after the Phase C entry and before Phase D. Run each under the Phase C loop discipline, and weave the Phase D log through them, a row as each step lands, rather than saving the whole trail for the end.

## Phase C: Run the loop

Each unit is an experiment: state the hypothesis, make the smallest change, measure against the predicate on the real artifact, keep it if it advanced, revert it if it didn't.
Apply the **sequence-verifiable-units** principle skill, verifying each unit before starting the next instead of batching checks at the end.

- Verify by inspecting the artifact, never a self-report. When something passes too easily, suspect the observation method before the system.
- Pair delegated work with a judge and audit the delegates' artifacts yourself before trusting them. If a worker games the gate, reset and harden the contract. If the gate itself is wrong, fix the gate in its own change rather than routing around it.
- A verdict is VERIFIED, NOT VERIFIED, or INCONCLUSIVE. Inconclusive is not a pass. Don't hide a negative.

## Phase D: Keep the audit trail

Log the run via the **show-me-your-work** skill, one canonical TSV with a row per decision and per unit, evidence as links. figure-it-out's work is usually ambitious enough to commit the trail so the reviewer can read it in the PR; commit it when confidence has to be shown. Prefer evidence produced by committed scripts. The trail plus the diff is what lets the human come back and trust the work.

## Phase E: Verify and hand back

Check the whole against the Phase A predicate on the real product, not just the harness. Encode any recurring correction as a gate, a lint rule, a check, or a script (the **encode-lessons-in-structure** principle skill).

**Reply:** the playbook you designed, the rigor level and why, the decision-trail path, what's verified against the predicate, and what's still open.